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Twenty first century has witnessed a new kind of war, "War on Terror". Pakistan joined this war after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and became a front line state in this war. Resultantly, Pakistan had to end its support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban did not accept that policy shift and in reaction began attacking almost every place and segment of society right from military to politicians, mosques to parks, and hospitals to schools. The relationship between media and terrorism is indispensable because terrorists need media coverage and publicity, and media needs shocking and sensational news stories. Given this backdrop, this study intends to investigate two research questions. First, "What reasons of terrorist attacks were discussed in the editorials of major Urdu and English newspaper of Pakistan?" and second, "What solutions were suggested in the major Urdu and English newspaper of Pakistan?" Two newspapers, daily Dawn (English Newspaper) and daily Jang (Urdu Newspaper) have been selected for this study. Content analysis has been used as methodology and editorials published during 2001 to 2016 constitute the population for this research study. The results show that shift in foreign policy of Pakistan towards Afghanistan was discussed as a major reason of terrorist attacks and similarly, as solution, review of foreign policy of Pakistan towards Afghanistan was discussed in highest number of editorials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 9/11, the Pakistani state's decision to abandon the Taliban (friends) under U.S. pressure and later to become a "frontline" state in the war against terrorism had led to a massive change in the "strategic security paradigm" of the Pakistani security establishment. This strategic policy U-turn transposed the state's long-held strategic partners and friends (Taliban) into brutal enemies in the war against terrorism in Pakistan. This article critically analyzes the enigmatic situation in which these friendly forces emerged as brutal actors in the war against terrorism and empirically examines the strategies and tactics that Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), adopted over time to create panic and fear to gain political leverage during military operations against them. This paper also highlights tactical mapping of TTP and its affiliates, its ideological grounding, and critical analysis of the perilous relationship between the state and Taliban forces as the Afghan jihad presents a state of war on terror. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impacts of the decisions of former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf to support the war of terror led by U.S. focusing on the role of the Pakistani Army, politics and the war in Afghanistan. Topics include impacts of the war on the civilians, military aid offered to Pakistan by the U.S., and role of the terrorist organization Taliban in Afghanistan and the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S.

A year after assuming power, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government faced a political crisis fomented by the pro-military opposition leader Imran Khan, who mobilized his supporters to protest alleged electoral rigging in the 2013 poll. Khan had to call off the protests after the Pakistani Taliban's grisly terrorist attack on an army-run school in retaliation for the army's offensive against them in North Waziristan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How might we understand the maintenance of political order in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas from Pakistani Independence until the mid-2000s, when all the factors used to explain the current insurgency have been present for decades? This article argues that particularistic institutional arrangements between the state and tribal structures-what I call 'hybrid governance'-established and maintained political order in the region. It develops a conceptual framework for the creation and maintenance of hybrid governance-where the state explicitly shares coercion with societal elites-as a specific kind of indirect rule. Through archival, documentary, and interview-based research, the article then demonstrates the utility of hybrid governance concept in explaining the establishment and operation of political order, and how the marginalization of the agents of hybrid governance is a major causal factor in the onset of the insurgency. The article concludes with some comparative reflections on the sources of political order outside the state's monopoly of force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan state law and Taliban rule of Sharia law are at different ends of a politico-legal spectrum. They share advocacy of one system of law and attraction to eradication of alternatives. Muslahathi Committees in Pakistan are used to explore legal pluralism, hybrid institutions that allow deliberative democracy to seek workable responses to injustice. Formal and traditional systems can show mutual respect and check each other. On the basis of purely qualitative evidence, it is argued that Muslahathi Committees are restorative justice programs that sustainably reduce revenge violence, make a contribution to preventing Pakistan from spiraling into civil war, and assist a police force with low legitimacy to become somewhat more accountable to local civil society. These contributions are limited, but could be more significant with modest investment in human rights and gender awareness training to control abuses and increase accountability. The ruthless, murderous, divisive politics of policing and restorative justice in Pakistan seems a least likely case for deliberative democracy to work. In limited ways it does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual basic security is limited in Pakistan as the state is institutionally weak. One way to attain basic security is by joining groups who provide security and services. Consequently, groups not part of the political mainstream, to attract a following, must therefore show that they are sufficiently powerful to obtain concessions from established actors. Thus, by engaging in violence primarily of a sectarian nature, the Pakistani Taliban sustains itself as a unified force while also highlighting that it is a powerful group, which in turn it hopes would enable it to curve a political space and win concessions from the established elite. Using social group identity theory, club goods, and the economics of extremism, the article highlights why the Pakistani Taliban has increasingly attacked minorities and why more must be done to address sectarian violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the post Cold War period, Pakistan has been in the face of diverse challenges. No doubt, the relative stability and predictability of that era has disappeared and a large number of regional and global alignments have lost significance as well. Old ties and linkages are under stress and almost every state is now reviewing the parameters of its foreign policy. Hence the post Cold War era can be described as New World Order or New World Disorder, as the security of small states has become more challenging than ever before. It has been dilemma of Pakistan that whenever in history, the dictators ruled the country, it was the US administration which found itself easy as the democratic governments relatively prefer to build up relations on mutual basis. From the last few years, the foreign policy of Pakistan has been directionless and to some extent, it has remained reactive too. The country is being run without any national security policy in face of many imposing challenges. The paper will discuss what challenges Pakistan is to face on the foreign policy front without going into details on one- dimensional focus on political aspects of country's foreign relations. It will analyze what issues should be taken up as urgent and important as far as the current challenges of the country are concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of Pakistan in Afghanistan as of 2013. It examines the history of relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the rise of the Islamic political group known as the Taliban in Afghanistan, and U.S. military operations in Afghanistan beginning in 2001. It also discusses the potential for an alliance between India and Afghanistan, the prospects of the scheduled 2014 evacuation of coalition military forces from Afghanistan, and transit trade.

The article discusses the Pakistani state's efforts in to counter Islamic militants in Pakistan from throughout the country's post-colonial period through 2012, with a particular focus on its efforts against the Islamic fundamentalist organization the Taliban. An overview of the Pakistani government's relationship with the country's military, including in regard to managing social unrest and fighting Islamic jihadists on Pakistan's frontier, is provided.

Pakistan's current socio-economic and security issues are mainly the product of the rise of the militant brand of religious extremism. There are different explanations for the reasons of such trend in the Pakistani society. Issues of education, employment, poverty and religious seminaries etc are often cited as the core reasons behind this tendency. A very significant factor which has been ignored in most of the literature and which is comparatively less researched upon is the origin of the issue and try to find out the reasons in the areas of Pakistan where first this menace emerged i-e Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The paper is an attempt to analyze the rising religious militant extremism in its heartland, FATA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is based on Professor Lieven's recent book, Pakistan: a hard case. He starts by contrasting British and American attitudes, emphasising that Pakistan is far more important to Britain than Afghanistan as a result of the sheer size of the diaspora. And British officials and soldiers spent decades dealing with the North-West Frontier. They would not have been surprised by the shifting loyalties of the tribes, which are simply a fact of life. But the basic point of the book is to explain how the Pakistani system works. Pakistan is a troubled, but not a failing state. It is tougher than we think. But the very reasons for its toughness inhibit change. The military are over-powerful and the tax system is grossly inadequate. Cooperation over the terrorist threat to the West is good, but Afghanistan is another story. Pakistan is making its calculation on the basis of a western withdrawal, which would be welcomed by the average Pakistani. At some point the West will need to cut a deal with the Taliban and only Pakistan can get them to the table. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, the author discusses the political and economical tensions in Pakistan and interlinks these conditions with Jihadism. He explains that Jihadi extremism in Pakistan needs a proper analysis of the ideological Islamist violence and its attitude that can help to win over the war on terror. He also examines three main problems Pakistan facing on its territory including Taliban, the jihadists opposing Islamabad, and the militant organization, Al Qaeda.

The insurgency of Taliban in November 1994 has modified the political landscape of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban issue is far from being categorized as a remote issue in South Asian region, on the other hand the Taliban issue is a global issue since it successfully influenced foreign policy of countries in the international arena. Previously Taliban was only considered as an insignificant opposition in Afghanistan however it has miraculously spread to Pakistan, the South Asian region and international proportion. With terror attack in several countries, Taliban started bringing impact on the international system status quo, all this while promoted by the US as stable, changed to anxiety with global terrorist threat. This issue not only caused the Afghanistan and Pakistan government to find solutions, it also caused the United States, the world's big power and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) comprising of various countries to address on the issue of Taliban. This illustrates that Taliban has become one political entity in the current international political arena. Taliban should be given necessary attention because the emergence of this so called small terrorist derived from the policy and strategy practiced by the US and Pakistan, where they provided training, aid and support to Afghanistan fighters known as Mujahideen. However today, fighters born between 1979-1989 have now become a threat to both countries under the flag of Taliban with strategy and tactics used in removing the Soviet Union before are now being employed on US and Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses the upsurge of Pakhtun religious insurgency against Talibanization in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan. Overview of the territorial and political settings, and the historical legacy and inhabitants of the country are discussed. In addition, the author traces the evolution of the aggressive rise of the Taliban in NWFP and the acts of terrorism and sabotage over the issue of military operations in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and adjacent districts.

Taliban is comparatively a new name of militants in Pakistan on the pattern of their counterparts in Afghanistan. The local Talibans who six years ago were few in number and confined to two tribal agencies are now spread over many parts of the North West Frontier Province. Although local problems of each of these areas are different from one another which have given impetus to the rise of the Taliban phenomenon, however, except in Khyber Agency the rest in other localities operate under the leadership of one commander, Baitullah Mehsood and that demonstrates, the seriousness and enormity of the problem. The local administration is powerless in the face of Taliban control of their respective areas they have established their own administration. All such policies enforced by the militant Talibans are commonly known as Talibanization of these areas. The question whether this is a temporary or permanent phenomenon depends where from one traces the roots of it? Some trace its roots to identify Regional unsettled disputes, local environment and tug of war between Islamist and secularists to take hold of power. There is a danger if the local circumstances are not timely changed in favor of the public demands these Islamist militants would take hold of power and Talibanization would become the fate of the country. On an optimistic note, as democratic government has taken over in March this year that gives the only hope to retain Pakistan as a democratic, moderate, progressive Islamic country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan played a key role in creating the Taliban, which then became its very own Frankenstein's monster. In the run-up to 11 September, debates raged at the heart of its foreign-policy establishment as it became increasingly clear to Pakistani officials that the Taliban were out of control and that Pakistan's attempts to influence the fundamentalist regime were failing. These anxieties are revealed in a set of Pakistani Foreign Ministry documents, providing a picture of Pakistani--Taliban relations for much of the year 2000 and up to June 2001. The documents, which were obtained in Kabul following the collapse of the Taliban, also reveal splits within the Pakistani administration, with the Foreign Ministry complaining that the Ministry of the Interior was undermining its policy of trying to curb the Taliban by letting what it openly described as 'terrorists' transit across and find safe haven in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]